I seem to be reaching the end of a mercifully brief trip to Cancer Town.
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Positively Ehrenreich: Bright-Sided (Part II-ish, since it’s more about me than the book…) [From the Archives]
The optimist, the joke goes, sees the glass of milk and says, “It’s half full.” The pessimist sees the glass of milk and says, “It’s half empty.”
The cynic sees the glass of milk and says, “It’s probably sour.”
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Positively Ehrenreich: Bright-Sided (Part I, perhaps) [From the Archives]
When The Secret came out in 2006, I had already been dabbling in self-help lore. I was mainly interested in time management; my family and I had been through a lot of changes recently (moving, job changes, new kids), and I was trying to find strategies to make myself feel less overwhelmed. But since time management, at least in the many forms I found it, comes packaged with all the other self-help paraphernalia of goal setting and positive thinking, I had already come across variants of The Secret and its focus, the “scientific” Law of Attraction.
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Making a difference, sometimes
In these times of isolation and distance, it’s easy to lose sight of what my work means. But in the past two days, I received two emails that have brought that into focus.
It felt good.
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preramble
preramble (pree-ram-buhl, pree-ram-), noun. an aimless, lengthy, and digressive introduction or introductory statement, commonly found at the beginning of a recipe on a recipe blog.
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Schadenfreudian
schadenfreudian (shahd-n-froi-dee-uhn), adj. of, or relating to, the pleasure derived from others’ misfortunes, especially those revealing subconscious or otherwise hidden sexual desires or practices. Ex.: I felt a schadenfreudian delight at Jerry Fallwell, Jr.’s resignation from Liberty University.
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Imposing structure
Photo by Silvio Kundt on Unsplash A lot of what I struggle with, in terms of work or creativity, boils down to one central tension: I need structure to get anything done, but I haven’t had much success imposing structure on myself.
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RIP, Anton
His novels aren’t among my favorites, and he wasn’t the greatest interviewer I’ve ever heard. But Anton Strout was the easily the most important author in my development as a writer.
I was sad to learn that he died yesterday.
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